Comments

Tom Schum: If I were a working portrait photographer, this would be a must-have!

Actually a little spherical aberration isn't bad in a portrait lens, it can add a flattering softness to large aperture shots. Canon's EF 135mm f/2.8 SF is even designed around the idea of allowing the user to control SA for creative effect.

Can't say I noticed too much chromatic aberration from the Petzval either.

h2k: I think in the news item on the front page you should clearly mention the lens mount.

I think in the specs overview you should clearly state if the "tilting" monitor is side-hinged or vertically articulated; anyway i like it that you mention "no touchscreen" expressively.

The news story has 'M43' in the title, but this obviously assumes knowledge on the part of the reader about what the abbreviation means. I guess here we may have gone one step too far in this regard - apologies for that.

Hear2see: I'd love it if DPReview could interview the new Kodak folks just to see what they're all about. Are they old time Kodak lovers or are they opportunity venture capitalists that don't care squat about photography.

I had a brief chat with JK Imaging director Austin Kazami at a press event earlier this year, he's an ex-Olympus man who clearly does care about photography.

Equally, I really hope he has hard-headed business people on board who want to make money, because otherwise the venture will fail.

RichRMA: Killing off comments to keep the Kodak down the "Most Popular Cameras" list? Why? Is Amazon not selling it?

We're not killing off comments, and they don't influence the 'Most Popular Cameras' list either. However in this case we've (inadvertently) not unified comments across the review and news story - apologies for that. But they're all still around in one place or the other.

samfan: I really did not expect it to have in-body IS. For primary Olympus users, this alone makes it a potential better choice of a second body than Panasonic GF series.

It also shows that anyone can have IBIS now. Bummer that the bigger photo (and consumer electronics) companies don't understand that.

Also I really really like the design. It has some classic, no-nonsense feel to it. I imagine it has to be beautiful in black, like some classic 70's primarily chrome cameras in black.

Another thing I did not expect is the offer of body-only options. Also not a sure thing with low-end bodies, and a very smart decision.

Most importantly - yay for cross-company standards! I really don't feel like buying any more camera tech in closed standards.

So, hopefully we'll get another body with EVF and more controls sooner rather than later.

To make all the Picture Effects shots look roughly the same, I stood in the same place and pointed the camera in the same direction. I pressed the Fn1 button and changed mode between shots. This actually works! (then again I've had a lot of practice of this sort of thing). But while the images therefore all look similar, they're not identical, which is why this is presented as a table not a rollover.

If I'd been carrying a tripod with me, and that bit of London wasn't absolutely packed with tourists this time of year, I'd have done it properly.

peevee1: "Like Olympus's Micro Four Thirds cameras, the S-1 uses in-body image stabilization that moves the sensor around to combat image blurring due to hand-shake. This has the huge advantage that it works with every Micro Four Thirds lens, including fast primes. However there is a catch; it doesn't work with non-electronic manual focus lenses, as there's no way of setting the focal length you're using (a feature that Olympus offers).

But how well does it work? We had a quick look at its effectiveness, using the Olympus M.Zuiko Digital 60mm f/2.8 Macro lens under controlled conditions. "

Stabilization based only stabilizing pitch and yaw (no matter IBIS or lens-based) does not work for macro all that well, you need horizontal and vertical shifts in addition (like in the Olympus 5-axis IBIS cameras, or the only lens supporting it, the new Canon 100mm F/2.8L Macro IS USM). Test in more realistic conditions, under normal magnification levels.

I used a macro lens, but that doesn't imply that I shot at macro distances. Instead it was in fact under normal magnification levels. Because I know all that.

Menneisyys: The lens is definitely not as good as the 12-32, albeit seems to be better than the 16-50PZ.

24mm equiv at f/6.3 (that is, not even wide open): particularly the upper left corner is pretty bad: http://www.dpreview.com/galleries/reviewsamples/photos/2952027/101_0062?inalbum=kodak-pixpro-s-1-preview-samples

After zooming in to 48mm, the corner / border sharpness gets better but they remain somewhat bad; see for example the entire left border of http://www.dpreview.com/galleries/reviewsamples/photos/2952025/101_0050?inalbum=kodak-pixpro-s-1-preview-samples . This is a F5.6 shot; that is, not even full wide open.

All in all, I don't see much point in preferring it to the GM1 with the kit lens at the current, for the kit IQ, IMHO high price ($599 at amazon), unless you do need the tiltable (but, unlike with the GM1, non-touch) screen / hotshoe / additional reach.

I didn't publish any pictures taken with the 400mm because the image quality of the **early production sample** I received was way below par. Based on my experience as a professional lens reviewer, I had to conclude was it defective (after testing it on both the S-1 and and my own E-M5).

Menneisyys: The lens is definitely not as good as the 12-32, albeit seems to be better than the 16-50PZ.

24mm equiv at f/6.3 (that is, not even wide open): particularly the upper left corner is pretty bad: http://www.dpreview.com/galleries/reviewsamples/photos/2952027/101_0062?inalbum=kodak-pixpro-s-1-preview-samples

After zooming in to 48mm, the corner / border sharpness gets better but they remain somewhat bad; see for example the entire left border of http://www.dpreview.com/galleries/reviewsamples/photos/2952025/101_0050?inalbum=kodak-pixpro-s-1-preview-samples . This is a F5.6 shot; that is, not even full wide open.

All in all, I don't see much point in preferring it to the GM1 with the kit lens at the current, for the kit IQ, IMHO high price ($599 at amazon), unless you do need the tiltable (but, unlike with the GM1, non-touch) screen / hotshoe / additional reach.

The lenses are 'early production', there's absolutely no point in analysing them in this level of detail.

Rob Sims: I'm slightly struggling to tell who this is aimed at. Cheaper superzooms lenses nearly always compromise on a speed and image quality... two of the main reasons why most users would have upgraded to FF for in the first place.

Is the 'beginner' FF-user category really large enough to warrant creating this lens? i'd have thought someone interested in this sort of lens would be better off with a superzoom attached to an m43 / aps-c sensor instead (just my 2ps worth).

Bill, I completely understand your point of view. However one thing that's always struck when shooting with a superzoom is that I end with a difference mix of shots; I'm just that much more likely to shoot at the Tele end compared to having to switch lenses to get those shots, especially when that would leave me trailing or delaying a group (which I'm bad enough at already). So which lens to choose depends on which shots are more important to you - 24mm wide angle, vs 135-300mm telephoto. The answer to that is entirely down to individual preference, so I can see how this lens has a market.

Rob Sims: I'm slightly struggling to tell who this is aimed at. Cheaper superzooms lenses nearly always compromise on a speed and image quality... two of the main reasons why most users would have upgraded to FF for in the first place.

Is the 'beginner' FF-user category really large enough to warrant creating this lens? i'd have thought someone interested in this sort of lens would be better off with a superzoom attached to an m43 / aps-c sensor instead (just my 2ps worth).

The counter-argument is that if you own a full frame camera, sometimes you still might just want the convenience of a superzoom lens. A 28-300mm will always be easier to carry around on holiday than a couple of premium zooms (and there's no law against owning both).

Weissbier: One would think that it wouldn't be too difficult for Tamron to make versions of this lens for E-mount, X-mount and NX-mount. Not that I'm interested in a super zoom particularly, I'm just happy too see more third-party support for mirrorless.

The E-mount version is already on sale. X-mount should be easy enough, but NX isn't necessarily so straightforward as the flange distance is substantially longer (25.5mm vs ~18mm for the other three). This may mean that the optical design is incompatible with NX.

Chaitanya S: Skeptical about the 5-stop stabilisation. Would like to see some reviews about that claim.

FWIW, Fujifilm's 55-200mm has one of the best IS systems of any telezoom I've tested - it gives about 4 stops in practical use, which is at least as good as anything I've used from Canon or Nikon. Whether this will genuinely achieve 5 stops is of course open to question, but I wouldn't be surprised if it came close.

Jogger: They should just use the Sony A7r as the standard platform for all FF lens tests.

If you illuminate your test chart with a constant light source, then it's true that in principle you can set the aperture of a G lens by watching the canera's metered shutter speed. But it's not terribly accurate, and incompatible with the rest of DxOMark's testing method (which relies on flash exposure of the chart in a darkened room, and of course aperture information in the EXIF for the automated data analysis).

None of this is theoretically insurmountable, but it's just hugely impractical.

Jogger: They should just use the Sony A7r as the standard platform for all FF lens tests.

This sounds great, until you start having to think about actually *doing* it. First of all, using any adapter will affect the results, as Roger Cicala has so elegantly shown. Secondly, how would you propose to set the aperture of a Nikon lens *properly* accurately and reproducibly on an A7R (so you can so the test with a high degree of confidence in a reasonable time)?

ray tracer: Eye-tracking data is highly valuable to advertisers, so they can maximise the effectiveness of page design and advertisement layout. Is this Google's way to get instant feedback on its page design from lots of unsuspecting test-subjects, ie us?

It's definitely not *Google's* way of doing that, but it may well be Amazon's.